THE first round of bidding has begun for the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, the privately held company that controls what is probably the most valuable back catalog in the theater business.

Gag orders seem to be all over the place, but word is that the bidders include Disney, Sony, Andrew Lloyd Webber and the Ambassador Theater Group, a London-based company.

The minimum threshold for bidding was said to be $130 million, although the families of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein reportedly hope to earn at least $250 million from the eventual sale.

R&H controls not only the Rodgers and Hammerstein catalog but also the songs of Irving Berlin. And it manages the stock and amateur rights to Lloyd Webber’s “Cats,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” and “Evita.”

The Lloyd Webber shows are major assets (“Joseph” alone is staged in American high schools all the time). But there’s a catch that anyone bidding for R&H should know about: Lloyd Webber has the right to take back his shows if R&H changes hands.

“If he doesn’t like the new owner, he can pull the shows,” says a source. (Presumably, he’ll be happy with the new owner if the new owner is himself.)

Lloyd Webber, who has said that his favorite composer is Richard Rodgers, made a ton of money for R&H with his London revival of “The Sound of Music,” which was the basis for a hugely popular BBC reality show called “The Search for Maria.”

“He’s demonstrated that he can take these old titles and come up with really successful new ways of exploiting them,” a theater source says.

(I shudder to think what Disney would do with the classic R&H shows. I mean, look what the company’s done with its own great titles – “The Little Mermaid” anyone? “Mary Poppins”? “Tarzan”??)

Still, it’ll all come down to money, and as rich as Lloyd Webber is, Disney and Sony are richer.

Some industry executives question whether this is the right time to sell R&H. With the credit crunch in full swing, many potential bidders might not secure bank loans to make the deal.

“Disney and Sony could pay cash for it – but then you’re limiting the competition and the price,” says a Broadway producer.

REGULAR readers of this column surely know that, while I like show tunes well enough, my true passion is rock ‘n’ roll.

In college, I was quite the air guitar enthusiast.

So imagine how horrified I was to discover – with the help of a dozen or so e-mails – that in Wednesday’s column I mixed up Bon Jovi with Bono.

It is Mr. Bono (who is a member of a band called U2) and not Mr. Jovi who is writing the score to “Spider-Man,” Julie Taymor‘s $40 million art musical.

One of my regular correspondents, MAD1170, writes: “Maybe they can use some of that $40 million to send you to journalism school.”